Unpainted Dreams
by Starriecat
Summary: She tried to paint pictures with her metal, to dictate scenes imagined in her mind like calculated dreams. But no matter how many times she tried, his smile was a dream left unpainted. Nejiten Drabble Series
1. Pictures Without Dreams

**_Disclaimer: Moi doesn't own Naruto. –GASP-_**

**_A/N: A drabble inspired-in-reverse by Utada Hikaru's 'Colors'. May become a series of drabbles, depending on the response. So please take 10 seconds and review!_**

**Pictures Without Dreams**

She tried to paint pictures with her metal, to dictate scenes imagined in her mind like calculated dreams. And the silver never failed to pinpoint blood with her striking precision, and she could spin the kaleidoscope any way she wanted to.

But the brush never even landed on him and no matter how many times she threw, the paint never flowed. Even when she tried a challenging smile and a friendly glare, the only kind she knew he would accept without hate, the cold pain in his eyes never lessened. And so she tried again and again, throwing weapons until she herself fell to the ground, only her eyes paralyzed above the dirt by the electrifying mist he offered in those moons.

"_You are weak. You will never win against me. It is fate." _

But she could never paint that picture.

And soon it became dazzling thrusts of silver flung through the air, and yet the metal all felt so dull in her hands and she thought the dangerous scenes were starting to rust. The images seemed less whole as she turned them around in her hand with frustrated fingers, growing wearier each time as she tried to find their old appeal. Soon they become reluctant fingers, tired and hopeless and blind. The blood no longer depicted her landscapes, the battles became mechanical and thoughtless and all drive for perfection was lost.

She was tired of failing.

And he was noticing. Sharp as his omnipotent gaze was, he saw how she tossed around the pieces of metal like jigsaw puzzles in the air with an expert hand and yet no longer even cared where they landed. The spars had turned into chores for her, where even dragging her feet along the bark had become-dare she steal Shikamaru's word?-troublesome and she flung bombards of weapons out of mere reflex now, brushes that never even touched the canvas. Her dreams were dead. Her eyes no longer watched him.

But she could still feel his questioning eyes boring into her even as she looked away into the trees, a piercing stare that tried to penetrate through her uselessly. As much as he opened his eyes, he closed his heart, and her graying eyes could no longer spark into a glare at him. She could not even see him anymore, would not look upon him. Her excitement was gone. Lightning had started to taste bitter.

She turned away, swinging through the branches that easily took her away from him without even evidence of the footsteps that had once led to him. She could no longer feel that burning pulsate through her fingers-it was gone. His smile would just never come for her, a dream left unpainted. Rocks did not gain faces unless you carved them in, and her kunai were all dry.


	2. A Second in the Storm

**Disclaimer: Naruto ish not mine. –cries tears of eternal sorrow- Neither is Be My Last, the song by Utada Hikaru from which the first line comes from. I'm addicted to that gal! x3**

**A/N: Since most of you liked the last drabble, I've decided to continue this series. This one's dedicated to Ennariel and Tenten Amakudari for most encouraging me to write more drabbles. Also to NessieGG for converting me to Neji/Tenten with her _Mature Intentions _and Goldberry for constantly feeding my N/T cravings. Arigatou!**

**

* * *

**

**_Just a Second in the Storm_**

**  
**

_(Mother, why does there come a day when we have to destroy even the ones that raised us?)_

There are no gray skies that she can climb into anymore, reaching with childish fingers to grasp something intangible yet so delicate. It once kept her breathing when storms of fierce metal whisked by her hair, electric charges barely unknowing they had almost gotten their target in her hidden bushes. Be strong, keep fighting and one day he will see you as a person and not a training tool. Keep panting, keep trying to touch that something in his eyes and one day it will not be turned away from you. Breathe.

The absence of air in her lungs now gives away no secrets to her. He is a tired and hungry avenger, starved of everything that could feed his deprived veins. The lack there must've ate away for so long he could no longer feel the gnawing teeth or the gaps fraying in the empty edges of where his heart should've been. Numb. That's why he's so cold whenever she stops their training sessions from colliding into the moon, or offers him half of her lunch, or even asks if he ever sleeps. He needs love.

Or so she tells herself as his eyes impale her to the sand, infiltrating the tiny cracks of her skin she freezes into, motionless under the shell. A whoosh of chakra strikes something dead in her chest as his two fingers pin her against the ground, stabbing accusations twisting two tunnels of blood until she's strangled to near suffocation. Her lips part open, a silent creaking as she chokes down an avalanche of blood, wide-eyed under dark fumes rising above the sand. It is a merciless action pinning her to the ground but the eyes that cover the sky have dark hardened into them and their message is clear.

_(Is there no one screaming for you on the other side?)_

The question is only fair, simple and hard to match her innocent one. The air is silent and undisturbed except for the wind cycling rust-grey around them, torrenting screeches of single notes of an overplayed melody. They are both eighteen and both of them have seen half of their friends succumb to death and their dreams shrivel away into the Earth with them.

So the question is only fair, but all she can think of is that second when her kunai marked the pulse of her mother's neck and an explosion broke her father's lung and it was ashes, ashes. She can only think of the regret splashing up the gnawed shore and the desperation of the lack of footing this newfound black offered her. There were moments of vindication and then there were moments when freedom wasn't worth the price.

But he doesn't know that what he is fighting is not a bird, and as long as he thinks she is free he can still chase after her in their tag game of metal and magic and she can keep asking him questions that will answer both of the urges that wrench apart their hands.

_(Why do you fight?)_

The sand is raging walls between them until they are both blind, sight lost to bits of something that used to be strong and now can only remember its old power in seconds when it can ride a storm. His sharpest crystal answer is intertwined in-between their lungs as he reaches for her through the wind and lips silently meet hers to repent for his sudden attack.

_Because I must breathe._

_(There are clouds in his eyes but none of them are free.)_

_(…so we'll breathe in decay, solemn and silent)_

_(lips locked open in attempts to find something new.)_


	3. Beyond Silhouettes

_**Disclaimer: If Naruto belonged to moi, why would I write fanfiction for it?**_

**_A/N: Wow, third one in five days. O.O Trust me, I'm amazed as you. But the ideas for these just keep coming, and until vacation ends these drabbles will probably be coming out just as fast. This came to me on the subway home last night. Inspired by Barenaked Ladies 'The Old Apartment'. Written while listening to Utada Hikaru's 'Blue' (heart-wrenching!), and although not inspired by it, I found that some of the lyrics matched:D So I put them in. And, I actually don't hate Neji (surprising, right?)! It's just too much fun writing Tenten angst, that's all. I'll write a Neji-centered fic…one of these days. –ninja-_**

**_A/N2: Wow, this is what happens when you don't re-read your stories before you post them. Fixed some tensing errors and added more feeling to the overall story. Sorry about that!_**

**_A/N3: Add some more explanations to clarify the actual events. Sorry for confusing you, StarFariey. -sweatdrop- I blame it on the fact that I wrote it at 5 in the morning. :P_**

_

* * *

_

**Beyond Silhouettes**

* * *

It was nighttime and Tenten didn't know why she was here.

The place had long forgotten him and her. When black flowed off the sky in drops of ink and left only him behind, a dark remnant of the night waiting for her against the burnt horizon…

that was a picture that no longer belonged to the frame. It was cast away like piles of pages from the screen, a trampled vision, and now there was only panic slowly creeping up her veins like a numbed poison, long forgotten until the moon had reminded her. Vines were twisting up the brigade inside of her, snakes of fear. Somehow she felt she had to fight the black-and-white blurs that kept flashing back on the screen with the footsteps that had led her here, swift movements with a mind of their own and yet somehow-. Somehow she knew what it was that had guided them.

She had wanted to say goodbye before tomorrow came. Tomorrow when she would have to slip off into the caves of Sound Country and try to retrieve teams of ninja that had gotten caught in the claws of their haunting voices. And it was ten against a thousand.

She did not want to greet the morning, but the morning would not leave her behind. It would take her away on a thread that just kept on getting snipped away in black piles that would never get visited again, locked away in cold metal shutters in her mind because she could not look behind. Tomorrow only held dangers and slit throats by her own hand and times that might be forever left unfolded and-and-and-

And she didn't want to go.

_(No matter how long the night is, day should break, right?_

_How old is that story?_

_You're still caught up in it, huh?)_

Nestled between the leaves were glimpses of white fire, tiny drops of light on the black wall painted around the earth. It was a barrier, a barricade blocking the grey blurs that sang of gone days. The stars were just needles of purity sunk into the dark cloth of fate. And the sky she saw now had already passed away millenniums ago in the lost race of light.

The trees that had become battered shields, ate away by shards thrown everyday for years in trying attempts to become god-they'd been chopped down, and new seeds had taken their place in the soil they had struggled for so long to claim. Little green threads had sprouted up the surface, twinged with leaves that easily swayed in the wind.

Tenten hated them.

The craters that he had spun into the ground with his sharp, skilled wind were covered up and filled in with dirt. It was his ultimate defense and she had hated it back then, how it always repelled every shuriken and senbon she had thrown in attempts to pierce that maddening smirk. But now she wondered why the Hokage had found a need to cap the craters, a lid of earth sealing the blurring blue sheen that kept cropping up in her vision. The ground was smooth and even and it didn't feel right that none of their seemingly endless battles that battered the ground with endless collisions, and burned lungs and flesh and metal with sweat and graceless flights of blood- had survived.

_(This is where we used to live.)_

She stared at the perfect grass, shining strands rustling in one motion with the night wind. They felt like needles against the bare skin of her ankles, a covering of porcupine quills over the grounds they used to play hide-and-seek and secretly twine fingers together while Lee and Gaia ran off into the sunset.

Are you trying to tell me to **_forget_?**

The thought that the earth was blaring this demand into her ears made her teeth clench together like she wielded kunai between them. Smoke rose from her glaring bronze eyes from the sudden volcano erupting at the seams of her eyelashes and it was all she could do to keep her fingers from snapping off from the force of their shaking. Her temples tensed in rigid fury reminiscent of the Byakugan and the stars wondered at how veins weren't sprouting from her eyes.

But the thing was, the thing that made her spine instantly freeze in a sudden blast of arctic wind was. The message made sense.

Stupid. Tsunade would never let some boy make her back down from a mission. A kunoichi must complete every mission given to her, to fight it head-on with every vapor of heat in her muscles and metal fists. Don't be a wimp. So yeah, you might die tomorrow, but that's been the same for every tomorrow you've had. As long as you keep a cool head, think and focus on the moment, you might not die, even if it is an S-rank mission and you're short by a thousand people.

_(I don't embrace fantasies._

_Its fogged up and I can't see.)_

But as she left the hill, shoulders re-stabilized with fierce composure, face hardened into a warrior's mask, she couldn't help but feel that wisp of a long-buried wish twirl smoke from its ashes.

He could be the one saying goodbye.

---

When the solar flames had spirited away the black waves into the sky ceiling again the day after, she was not there to greet it.

But he had been waiting for her.

When the news finally came that they had been betrayed and Sound Country had annihilated both the captured ninja and the rescue team before they had gotten even half a mile close, he came and leaned against the tree where she had sprung out with tangled black music tape burning in her eyes, kunai in hand and ready to aim countless years ago.

He remembered the smoke that had risen from the sudden cooling of her eyes as something caged in them blew off its bandages. He remembered the curve of her cheek in his hand as her fingers involuntarily released her kunai in surprise that she had meant for him. He had dashed to that spot to block up the chakra holes spiraling within her, but found his own fingers had lost their trained cold against her flushing face.

And the standstill their fight had taken proved to be worth it when her lips slowly melted into his in the midst of the maze of trees that had become home.

_(we left our luxuries behind to live in places where passion grows faster than toxic smoke)_

He watched the sunlight fall over the dragging footsteps dug into ground, and how those marks were darker and grazed deeper into the surface where they had each fought to control the accelerating poles of the magnet. The flashing heat raced along the traces recorded on his frigid skin where she had desperately grasped onto him in attempts to rediscover balance on that day lost among memories.

(_The desert dawn is cast on my eyelids._

_My tears don't spill at all.)_

His eyes could not hold onto any strength as they traced the scars in the ground over and over again. He never indulged himself, but the sudden lack of oxygen that withered his throat crushed that locked door. And then in an instant the flood of grey blurs that he had tried so hard to withhold came pouring out into his mind unbound and unleashed like waterfalls of choking sun. He didn't want to remember, couldn't remember or he would suffocate against the tons of blood that had ceased to flow. But if he forgot she would be gone, because he was all she had.

Pressure was gaining against his eyelids but he did not close them; he was dismayed to find the black-and-white flashes of her on his screen were static. And so he locked them open, searching the forest they used to pant and exchange familiar sparks of glares that connected their lips and metal instantly with a desperation he could not recognize.

And he would not close them even when they were lined with rising water and he longed for her fading silhouette to go beyond the horizon; back to him.

_(Only memories, fading memories._

_I want them back.)_


	4. Fastest Falling Star is Numb

**Disclaimer: Dun own, dun sue.**

**A/N: Thanks for all your reviews! You guys really make my day! This one's dedicated to Ennariel, Kodoku6 and naash for always being awesome. :3 **

**Oh yeah, and as for how fast you can expect updates…well, let's put it this way: When I post one drabble, the next one is probably already half-planned/done. So check back every other day! However, for now I'm going to until I have 35 reviews before updating again.**

**Here's my first drabble in Neji's perspective. :O That little line in parenthesis there is from 'Keep Tryin' by Utada Hikaru (surprise!), since I just got her latest album. :3 Enjoy!

* * *

**

**Fastest Falling Star is Numb**

Candle embers burned the skin of his fingertips as he stared out the flashing window. An ink-breaking storm was raging. The power had gone out as he had sat in the darkened room for days and watched waves of rain crash and shatter in a million drops of glass against the bushes. Pure remnants of resurrected water fell and broke onto the ground, wind-splashed and failed at living. Blue-black shadows overcast the walls and the space between them, crowding his lungs and the air with silence.

The darkness lined the shapes of his face, sharp dead edges. He was a pale entity, separate and yet a part of the reflectionless walls that caged a dimension where the sky could not breathe and the tornado of colliding black notes were motionless. The window was an empty white frame and the thrashing fall of rain blurred out any clear images, sending them spiraling to the ground. The mysteries of what the glass could have held if it was dry and lighted drowned out in his mind.

His senses were disappearing, vanishing from his cells just a little at a time, painfully slow hints that fate would make him completely numb. It was just a matter of time, and in his mind he was already motionless in the cages of the ground. Yesterday the feeling in his legs had evaporated; slowly rising off his skin like someone was peeling puzzle pieces off of him into the air. He cursed the loss of the breakneck movement that had once crushed skulls and spun away barrages of metal to the ground, feeling powerless as it floated away. He should be used to the inevitable by now, shouldn't he?

_(Every morning I want to destroy this mirror which reflects my weak natural face)_

Today his skin had lost itself completely. He couldn't feel his own flesh against the chair or the weight that were usually held up by his forcibly straight shoulders. He could only guess that he was there and not a ghost permanently trapped in mid-existence.

The only thing that told him he was alive was the suffocating weight in his chest, the mist-cold space aching from waiting so long for the absence to be filled. A bruised shell. A withered cage.

He was the fastest falling star, and yet he didn't feel anything at all.

His eyes hardened, losing wisps of their color to gray as his fingers grasped nothing. He couldn't connect with the burning flames that were so obviously _there, _stark pillars of heat contrasting against the dark even as he touched them-or rather, tried to force his fingers to move like he used to do so skillfully as he smirked at the enemy, already knowing their impending doom. It seemed ironic now.

A chill had enveloped the bones of his fingers, freezing any warmth that might have seeped through his pores. It had always been there, trapping his veins as frost spread icicles spanning the map of blue inside him, even under the blazing rays that scorched red on the skin of every Sand inhabitant. He was always pale and had wondered at the blood that had been pierced out of his skin that one time she had been able to hit him. So he _did_ have blood flowing through him and not wires.

The muscles that formed a barrier between his skeleton and his skin used to feel so hard he sometimes wondered if there was anything but stone and gray inside of him. The occasional bitter pulse that shocked his core was the only one he knew.

She came in through the door, stepping silently. She always walked like a kunoichi, swift and noiselessly, and that was especially helpful now that he couldn't hear. But as she closed the door he knew there should've been a creaking noise from the swinging hinges. And it irritated him.

She looked up at him with strong eyes, but chips of bronze had shattered off and in their places were jagged edges of black he knew would have been there even in full sunlight. He wanted to smile and turn them gold again but he couldn't feel his lips.

So he settled for watching her with an unwavering gaze as she came closer to him, wordlessly because she knew he could no longer hear her voice. But her lips shifted to one side, bunching up at the end in attempt to lighten something in his own eyes and he knew she was trying. Her eyes were sunless and her face didn't burn with that extra spark like it always did when she saw him, but her cheeks still curved up in its familiar-tolerable-(Hyuuga Neji did NOT use the word 'cute') way and in itself it was enough.

She walked up behind him, resting her hands on the sides of his neck as she leaned her face close to his. He jolted as he felt her breath against his cheek, little puffs of heat that started at her throat and escaped from her lips. It was the first time he had felt anything for hours and instantly it cracked the ice beneath the skin she touched and he felt-_felt_-the puzzle pieces fly back to him, melding together under her warmth. She placed her fingers carefully on his face, hesitant as she touched him and he wanted to tell her he craved the feel and that she had awakened the sun, but he could not stir his voice from the grave.

Heat seeped from her fingertips in little beams into his cheek and it was suddenly alright that he hadn't been able to feel the candle flames. Her eyes connected with his, burning with charcoal again and they pleaded a message into him like he had flowed chakra into her so many times.

_Come back to me._

Her lips dropped to his neck, soft and firm at the same time he noted in surprise again. Her eyes never left his, never stopped pleading as she kissed his pulse desperately. Her forehead leaned underneath his chin, a familiar warm support that he had almost forgotten. The smallest sob escaped onto his neck, eyes closed for just a second, barely audible to his suddenly awoken hearing. Her face rearranged and mended as she looked up again and her lips massaged over his, slowly moving up and down like a begging puppy.

He was a dying man from an incurable poison and numb as a rock, but he thought he could feel her calling him against his lips in a hot, long-drawn breath that steamed the surface.

_I need you.

* * *

_

**A/N2: Wow, I didn't know I could write Neji angst. O.O Well, actually, maybe I can't. I don't know. What do you think? Do you want to see more of him? Tell me your thoughts and requests through that little button at the left!**


	5. Abandoned Snowglobe

**Disclaimer: Naruto has not, is not, and will not belong to me. Ever. –cries endless Neji-fate tears- **

**A/N: Dedicated to FalconFire for inspiring this with a line in her fic, _Strange and Beautiful_. **_'He was so distant, so quiet…so strange, an intangible person who was beautiful in the way that…that winter was beautiful. She couldn't really describe it.' _**Well, I'm gonna give a shot at describing it:)**

**One reviewer asked me if the chapters were all related or separate. Here's my answer, from the Wikipedia entry of 'vignette', the formal literary term for a drabble.**

'_Unlike the traditional scene in a play, the vignette is not strictly linked in with a sequential plot development but establishes meaning through loose symbolic or linguistic connection to other vignettes or scenes.'_

**And I am proud to say that I've done that before I ever looked up vignette on Wiki. :O :3 The second-to-last set of parenthesis is from Utada's 'Passion'. Updates should generally be on time, since I've already got about 5 drabbles planned and 3 of them almost completely written that just need to be revised. So enjoy the latest!

* * *

**

**Abandoned Snow Globe **

When they awoke, the world had fled away from its color.

They lay entangled on the snow-sprinkled ground, her arms tightly hugged around his neck, head buried in the black strands of his hair. Her cheeks were flushed the color of cherry syrup as she sleepily drank in the air connected between their breaths, chocolate buns undone and their unwound ribbons lacing through his fingers. Her legs curved around his, unconsciously burning invisible flames into his pale skin and blocking them from the cold crisp air that nipped at their bodies.

His left arm held her waist possessively, gripping her close to his chest as the other dangled around the small of her back, silently stroking the ribbons of her rarely-freed hair in unconscious velvet circles. His breath was steady as usual, but somehow seemed…lighter in the warmth shared with her. Their eyelids were closed in an innocent peace unknown to the waking world, her lashes laid smooth against his throat.

Both were lost to dreams.

A cold, bristling wind stirred dusts of white across the training ground. They awakened slowly, eyes reluctant to move from the swirling colors of landscape they could only visit at night. As the screens faded beneath their eyelids however, they shifted open, snapping with alertness that stung with the reality known only to ninjas. Their vision sharply swerved, frame spinning in blurs as they took in the white world suddenly whisked onto the screen while they had slept.

Tenten loved the winter, the white blankets the earth hid under while winds blew icy gusts and beautiful storms coated everything from eyelashes to ramen with six-pointed stars. The air was cold, conditions hard to travel under, but didn't anyone see the mist that drifted from their breaths into the sky? Winter was a separate world the year held with daunted fingers, white that could instantly flash upon the screen and whisk away just as quickly into a disk that no one wanted to remember.

But she wasn't afraid of the dangers because she always went onto the battlefields with him, and the winter storms were the winds that twisted into his cells and birthed his crystal eyes and veins. His cold fingers were always numb, but something about the silent rain that fell through his glass eyes when she touched them told her to keep holding them. It was the same way the harsh air sometimes froze her skin and the only thing that told her to keep moving was his voice. She kept moving and breathing through that cold air because his voice could suddenly refresh the world awake and the blank spaces of his eyes suddenly looked like snow that kissed her skin as it fell. It-wasn't that bad.

Because the snow could fall and fall until the ground no longer shivered, but its relieved sighs would not be heard as it hid from the cold, harsh universe that replaced Leaf Country when the gold-shone streets were dominated with white metal of another planet. The alien nights when Konoha could hide under sheets of white and pretended it was pure, until dirt-streaked boots of rushing passersby crushed the illusion, caught up in their desires for heated fireplaces and food that could fill the cutting absence of blood in their faces. The nights they tried to forget the strange city of glass shattering above them, shards still marked with the fading ghosts of fingerprints.

It was numb, but didn't they notice that with the shorter days you could catch the rising sun against your eyelids, orange light that brushed the snow with shimmering radiance and that the bare trees merely let that fleeting beauty spread its wings in the sky? They were seconds of an ordinary day when an illuminated beast rose its head from the smoldering ashes and revealed brilliant glowing feathers of a phoenix. But the day was so long and tired and those seconds fled away unseen, gone and numb from having forgotten the flames it cracked out of its shell with.

She smiled as she watched the sky, fingers still looped into his hair. Waking up with him to her favorite months of the year would be a memory she would keep with her like a snow globe, and secretly shake up again every winter with the snowfalls.

He stared into the white sky as snow drifted from its endless depths, one arm cradling her against his chest. She was a warm weight against him, the sweet cream in his coffee even when he insisted he liked it black, and for a moment all he wanted to do was close his eyes and breathe in the pure scent of her lying so contently with him, warming his dead lips as she watched the snow fall in wonder. He always wondered exactly what she saw in it, a little annoyed that apparently there were limitations to his Byakugan.

But there were missions to do, places to go and people to capture and they did not have time to feel the heat of anything but speedy, precise killing that always replaced the air lost from panting with bitter death in his mouth. Shinobi did not have time to fall in love. They kept their faces hard like soldiers' shields and kept sheathing their swords to cure other peoples' dreams. Their happiness was and would stay in battle, where they could be robots happy to warm its wires and uncaring if they exploded apart in wrenches of metal. Hyuugas didn't have the choice of who to love. And he refused to marry while he still loved her.

So there was only one choice.

Abruptly he got up from the ground, letting her drop to the ice as he turned his back on her, already walking off into the distance. He tried to ignore the surprised pain that had suddenly shocked her eyes.

"We need to get to Stone Country before daylight. Are you coming?"

He could see her from behind him, her eyes blinking once before hardening darkly into a frozen bittersweet chocolate. She understood what he was really saying. She always did, no matter how subtly he laced the messages into his actions.

"Yes. Sorry for wasting for your time." She got up off the ground, dusting snow off her jacket and paced swiftly past him, instead of following his trusted eyes like always.

She would not look back.

* * *

Winter was a window she watched like a starving hawk in the years afterward when his eyes no longer held her close through the distance between the trees and his hands stayed cold.

_(Towards the people, the places I will never see again_

_I open this window)_

She left her snow globe behind and did not cry when flakes of ice brushed past her lips.

_(Soon enough I will find my dreams have already died,_

_so let me dream a little longer.)

* * *

_

**A/N2: This got a little long. –sweatdrops- Sorry! I just wanted Tenten to express her love of winter/Neji and got a lil carried away with the descriptions. But I hope it didn't bore you! –bows head in shame- Please review!**


	6. Sleeping Beauty

**Disclaimer: Naruto is not my lover-COUGH-I mean, Naruto is not mine.**

**A/N: This scene came to me out of nowhere today. You know guys, the lack of reviews is slightly depressing. :( Inspiration has been kind of low lately, so any comments or critique you'd have to offer would be awesome! It'd take like, less than a minute at most. I put in some lines from Utada's _Kairo (Sea Route)_, which matches so perfectly with Nejiten fate angst its scary. -squeals- Although the metaphor for fate as a 'picture frame' came from me before I ever looked at those lyrics! –smug- Also put in a line from her _Be My Last._ This is the prequel to 'Fastest Falling Star is Numb'. :) Enjoy!

* * *

**

**Sleeping Beauty**

Tenten caught a glimpse of him in a fleeting flash of moonlight as she raced through trees. A jolt of something old and tender and something new and hard collided into her spine like thunder, her eyes wide and shaking like a stone on a ricketing balance. A-ghost?

Another shock of thunder resurrected her veins, flowing blood back into her brain. She leapt down from the darkened branch onto the damp-streaked grass with trained movement, shards of moonlight rippling across her skin between silhouettes of leaves. She paced quickly towards where she thought she'd seen the shadow of him, stumbling as she thought her nerves would jump out of her skin.

_(One boat hits the blackened waves) _

He was collapsed beneath the underbrush. Stray twigs snapped behind leaves and scratched at his pale skin, slowly dragging tiny white lines marked on the surface. Her brown eyes flickered at the confirmation. So it _was_ him, in-the-flesh, blood pulsing alive and breathing.

She frowned, lips pursing together as she kneeled one leg beside him, the other propping up an arm that cupped her chin as she stared silently, scrutinizing his face, grey lines creasing his cheekbones and forehead from exhaustion. Clear drops of water broke off from the edges of foliage above, lightly pelting her bare shoulders and the back of her exposed neck. Even when the clouds left, the rain would still fall.

Black mud smeared against her sweatpants as silver currents of dark storm fog slowly passed the moon, exhaling eerie white against the ink-soaked sky. She glanced at it briefly, a mere second of reminiscence as she vaguely reflected all the nights it must have seen her here, trading strikes of buzzing metal with flights of blue among the trees. Their dark shade provided excellent corners of the world where she could hide and carelessly plan her next move with a fierce smile twisted in anticipation. Except when she fought with him, of course. He could always see her.

Except when he dreamed.

She lined the edges of his jaw with a stray finger, light touches tracing his face barely escaping the barriers of her skin. Her lips inched towards his, tension wringing wires in the barriers of the air as they brushed against him.

_(I want to peer at the countless vistas)_

Resist temptation. This is the enemy, dammit.

_(But the one who chooses the picture frame is God.)_

Her fingers jumped back into her palm, lifting her head up after another moment of craving the feel of him, stiffening hard with tension. Something about the muscles of his face seemed to have visibly hardened, permanently rigid with stone gray even in sleep.

Years ago she would have grabbed his shoulder and violently shook him awake, and maybe even fed him some Curry of Life so he'd bucker up. But that was when they were still on the same team and saw the same stars spinning in the revolution of the world. Curtains had fallen between them, knots tied in veils of white and oaths given to different leaders. He'd traced Sasuke's footsteps to Orochimaru, caught by the most unlikely lure-a woman. She was dark and beheld in reverent whispers rippling through the Sound, though Tenten knew little of her except the destruction she struck through battlefields. You couldn't hide from sounds, they would always find you.

So where was she here now?

Hell, screw her, _what was he doing here_?

She had been surprised as she skipped home from a mission through the familiar branches of trees, woven moonlight lapping against her for brief seconds in the dark, to find him lying in the grass, worn veins almost visible through his translucent skin. It had been a long time since she had seen him or even allowed him to enter her mind. The oddly familiar sight from what seemed like decades ago shocked a long-forgotten circuit, stirring whirlwinds of dust in her thought cages, a grey stand-alone picture contrasting in the midst of the white collage. It was strange to see him when she had finally forgotten him. He didn't belong in the frame anymore.

_(Hide and seek, I will never finish)_

He probably trained alone now.

His eyes were still shut like silver shutters against his face, completely out cold on the grass despite her presence. She always told him on the rare occasions when she woke up before him that his Byakugan didn't matter if he was asleep. He merely snorted then and retorted calmly that it didn't matter because he always woke up first. But she knew she was right. After all, he never remembered how she gazed at his rarely relaxed face for long minutes afterward, occasionally indulging herself and sneakily running her fingers over his lips and jaw, caressing them and memorizing their precious feel beneath her fingertips. He always woke up completely oblivious to her stares while he had slept and she would silently giggle and call him a baka for falling asleep during a training session. It had worked that way for years and now that those years were gone, it really didn't matter.

Really.

So…why was she so annoyed that he still didn't wake up at her touch?

_(My hands don't connect at all.)_

She really was a ridiculous excuse for a Konoha ninja. Tsunade would have had him knocked into a 50-foot deep crater by now and whimpering out all of Orochimaru's plans.

That made her snort. Neji whimpering?

Okay, well. Maybe not. (That thought frightened her slightly anyway.)

Still, it was horrible that she was just thinking about his muscles and letting him beauty-sleep while his leader planned the end of the world. Hell, while _he_ was probably planning the end of the world in his sleep. She shivered at the sight of what could very well be the apocalypse being plotted in front of her.

Eh. Bad conscience, bad.

She stared at the pale-skinned boy, cold sweat staining his clothes. His eyelids fluttered slightly, lips shaping into an 'o' as though he were about to form a word. She blinked and he was still as a statue again. Ergh. She had been daydreaming-eh, night-dreaming-actually wasn't that just called _dreaming_?- again. She should bring him to Tsunade before he woke up, otherwise if he ran away she'd never be able to catch him.

She dug one arm behind his back and the other beneath his legs and slowly painstakingly lifted him off the ground, arms straining with the weight. She grit her teeth. Damn, weren't ninjas supposed to be light?

It was rather ironic that she was the one carrying him bride-style, instead of the faint vision that had always managed to creep into her dreams. She cracked a bitter smile, eyes darkened in the melding shadows of the trees as she started walking as fast as she possibly could without waking him up. As she set her gaze forward, determinedly towards the village with sweat flying off loose strands of black hair behind her, silently beneath her field of vision he cracked his eyes open a slit, letting the moonlight flow in and his lips curved into a small smile he hardly remembered how to make.

The poison was breaking into his veins until he could no longer move, but as he dreamt of icy treeless plains where sound could not even reach him buried in the dirt, he had felt her warmth reawaken the sun and burn through the barriers of the ground. Her kiss had been the first one he had felt in ages, even with the Sound princess in his bed every night. As she had touched his face the way she had so many times years ago when she thought him asleep, she had brought something back to life now when he was truly gone.

Beauty is voiceless, he decided as she carried him home.


	7. The Color of Fading Toxic Smoke

**Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to moi. **

**A/N: Set in an alternate universe. Influenced by the movie Pride and Prejudice, which I just saw today. The 2 parenthesis in there are from The Postal Service's _'Clark Gable'_. This just came to me as I watched the dawn when I stayed up all night writing as usual. So lucky you gets an early update:) Enjoy and please review!

* * *

**

**The Color of Fading Toxic Smoke **

She walked through the rust-red streets, the orange sun spilling blood over the black nightline of skyscrapers. The air was thick with dust and hazy, humid heat dragging down her every step. Stray strands of black swayed above her forehead, sweat running down in endless trails as she panted, dark eyes barely strained forward. The world was blurring, pools of paint streaming down the sides and running into each other at the edges.

At last she sputtered down to the ground, rough pavement scraping against her hand as she choked down blood, feeling it fill up her lungs and throat as she gripped an arm across her chest, coughing. The rising sun beat into her back like a burning sheet of coals withering her skin at a touch. She hated waking up everyday in her cold, tiny medicine-smelling unit assigned by the government to protect her and everyone in the city from the sun's UV rays. No wonder everyone had died. Who could live, trapped in that freezing lab that practically screamed "GOVERNMENT SOLDIER CONSPIRACY"? But who could who live if they escaped to _here_?

A cool shadow came behind her, instantly freezing sweat and the blood about to burst from her throat. She heavily swallowed it down, dark eyes narrowed and bitter with resentment as he stood like the statue of a fatal god, indifferent and wielding fate with cold all-powered hands.

"What do you want?" she managed to pant out in a deep, low biting voice, raspy with weary breath and hatred. Her fingers tightened against the concrete, gripping the burning black as an angry stronghold. She did not have to turn to see who it was.

His voice was steady and calm as he answered her, casually as if she had asked him how his day was. "You," he answered shortly, gaining an invisible island with the word. He was gaining ground faster than the falling shadows of leaves-whatever they were. They were just some stupid story told to her and her mother and her mother before her of a time when the earth was green and so rich, food grew out of it.

As if. The ground was steel and acid-black and heaven forbid if she ate something out of those dust capsules. That was just some fairytale you told yourself on the nights you had to sleep underneath cars to avoid the acid rain because someone had shot up your apartment again and the carpets had gotten too wet with blood to lie on. Like last night. Yeah, that was probably the only reason she was thinking about 'leaves'.

He put an undisturbed hand against her shoulder, bare and hot from the torn cloth of her T-shirt and her raging flinch at his touch. She grit her teeth, digging them into each other to restrain herself from spinning around and biting his fingers off. They were infuriatingly cold. But if she attacked him she'd get ripped apart by the wires strung within her own flesh that could zap her death within an instant at his mere whim. Ergh. Damn politics. Damn whatever crazy people were desperate enough to listen to his shit about controlling the population.

Then again, she knew who they were too, didn't she? Her mother, who had arranged her to marry him in a naïve hope to diplomatically save their city from getting bulldozed. That was what, five years ago? And the day after they got married all the people who had gotten wired had been killed by inner explosions. Except her. Because he wanted _her_. The fluid in their water must've really been doing something to her memory if she'd forgotten. Lucky she'd thrown it up.

"Oh, so that's why you sent a bunch of crackheads to shoot up my apartment last night." She said sarcastically, a bitter understanding slowly creeping into her dazed mind. "You wanted me out so you could personally watch me die on the street, right?"

"I knew you wouldn't die," he chose to respond instead, ignoring her second question. Selective attention as always. She slumped her head into her knees on the street, the heat quickly taking its toll on her. And this was just the morning breeze. Maybe she just should have stayed in that cage and let herself forget everything with their numbing poison. At least they had AC.

"Great. Thanks for believing in me." She closed her eyes, breathing in smog and the stench of melting toxic things. So this was what a last breath tasted like. He would shoot her and then it would be done. Actually it wasn't that bad, sleeping on the streets if it meant everything would finally end.

She waited. His cold breath misted onto her shoulder, oddly reinvigorating the chapped skin there. She peeked open an eye when she still felt no gun. "Aren't you going to shoot me? You didn't exactly run after me when I escaped from your HQ five years ago so I assumed a genius like you would know it's a little late to express your intentions."

"Is it?" His hand had dropped from her shoulder and she felt slightly relieved and yet somehow disappointed at the release of contact, and yet he was already kneeling beside her, exposing his pale skin to the flames of concrete and meeting her eye-level. She started slightly, jumping back at the sudden intensity she had seen close-up. They were penetrating white eyes and yet somehow she wanted to trace them with her fingertips, like a child awed by a snow globe. What was _with _her? Why did suddenly want to drown into the lips of the man that had destroyed her whole world?

She couldn't look away from him.

Her voice faltered, suddenly gone from her throat at the desperate, questioning look in his hollow eyes. She yearned to say, 'Yes, it is too late' but somehow she could not find her lips forming the words. Her hesitated answer lingered in the glance between them as he searched her eyes for the key.

"Is it too late to love?"

She avoided his gaze, dodging the question with an excuse as she finally regained control of herself. "I can't help but wonder if passion even exists anymore. There are too many games to die for and everyone just has to pick a cause to cry over and pretend they're so deep." Her fingers gripped at his wrist as she leaned into his face, exchanging hot breaths between them. His eyes poured into hers, an awakening river that somehow held her steady. She found herself suddenly needing to ask the question he had asked her on the morning of their wedding day. "Neji, what is '**love**'?"

_(I want so badly to believe that there is truth-)_

His voice was calm and steady. "Whatever you want it to be," he said simply, with a powerful surety that told her without further question that it was so. "It could be a fire that makes you not dread tomorrow. It could be a ready-made disaster, a risk waiting to happen. It can be a tulip offered to your lips that's already dead to you. Or-" he brushed his lips against her and deepened his touch, capturing her with an unbinding strength that suddenly flowed all embers of doubts away to smoke as she suddenly felt the need to grasp his shoulders or this absorbing heat rising through her chest like vapors would suddenly free itself and fly away. "-it can be this."

She opened her mouth and half-expected the breath she released in gasping pants would float away like crystallized mist into the red sky. She didn't know whether or not it did though, she closed her eyes and laid her head against his shoulder. He held her against his chest, wrapping an arm around her back protectively.

She whispered in a soft breath that seemed to disintegrate the toxic smoke polluting the sky into a million little rainbows.

"**It is." **

_**(-that love is real)**_


	8. Morning Glory

**_Disclaimer: Someday when I become rich and famous, I'll buy the rights to Naruto. Until then, keep your greedy paws to yourself. _**

**_A/N: Another AU. Dedicated to Tenten Amakudari for all her wonderful reviews. You're so nice! –sobs Lee-style- This one was fun writing. :3 Probably my longest one yet. Originally I gave the title to a different drabble, but I decided it suited this one better. The lines at the end are from 'Simple and Clean' by Utada Hikaru. Enjoy!

* * *

_**

**Morning Glory**

"I hate the morning," she said, glaring dispassionately up at the moon fading into swallows of black.

She folded her arms behind her back, leaning a leg into the cold steel wall and listening to the scraping squeak of her boot whistle off into the night. She kicked at the pebbles beneath her foot, scattering them away from the concrete earth-replacement and into the courtyard. They melted, sinking into the ground at contact with the toxic grass, new silver spikes sprouting up in their place within seconds. Black shimmers engulfed the mirrors, glimmering darkly and turning the world outside the fortress into a complete outstretch of black.

Wind howled and whistled, stirring slicing currents into the empty space. She stared expressionlessly at the devoid dimension, lips dry as a cold gust wrapped itself against her numb cheeks like a soft chill; almost a kiss... She closed her eyes, trying to remember a certain feel of lips brushing on her face, to hold onto it. It faded away like a ghost saying farewell. She opened her eyes again.

"It reminds me of when I used to wake up to-trees…" her voice drifted off, suddenly a bitter laugh choking out of her at the confused look the blond guard across her wore. Everyone had forgotten trees, hadn't they? Suddenly she felt very tired. Heavily a breath released itself from her lips in resignation. It instantly evaporated into the parched air, curling white mist eaten away by black pixels.

"I like the night. Its always stayed the same-black." Her voice was oddly light, a trace of cheerfulness and-was that her old cute voice coming out again? "Its like a danger disease spreading across the clouds. A natural high." Her voice was back to its bitterly amused tone, lips curled faintly, a twisted dark ferocity deepening the pale shadows. The blond girl merely blinked and smiled in response.

"Yeah." She studied her nails. '_I really should get a manicure_,' Ino thought. Her blue eyes suddenly gleamed as she remembered something. "Hey, do you know what Sasuke-kun's favorite color is? I heard he's coming back tomorrow and I am totally going to steal his heart this time! First impressions, you know. Maybe it'll be love at first sight!" she squealed excitedly, vaguely reminding Tenten of the pig Haruno Sakura always called her. "I got the hottest dress yesterday-you know, the red leather one I showed you with the slit thighs and leopard print strap?-"

"Shift change, Yamanaka-san." A cold voice came from behind them. A whoosh was heard as he skillfully leapt from the balcony above, landing with graceful ease as a smirk traced his lips. His white eyes flashed with unknown heat as they lingered on Tenten for a moment before quickly turning coldly towards Ino. Tenten blinked.

'_What was that?''_

Ino sweatdropped, gulping and smiling nervously under his piercing stare. She put a hand up in front of her face as she stumbled backwards into the metal door. "Okay! Uh-I-I'll-just-be-going then!" She bolted out of sight, door swinging back and forth on its hinges. Neji turned calmly turned to Tenten like nothing had happened. His glare faded as she returned his gaze, feeling a bead of sweat run down her neck. She repressed a gulp, lowering her eyes and smiling faintly, feeling blood stir again in her numb cheeks.

'_Why am I **more** afraid when he's **not** glaring?' _

"So…" Tenten fingered the throwing knife in her pocket, trying to find reassurance under his stare. She always liked using knives better than guns. It made her feel like it was her speed and skill that got the job done and not some mass-produced weapon. Guns were for cowards. But the feel of the knife in her hand wasn't doing anything for her quickening pulse, sending beats resounding that she thought would break open her chest.

She dared a glance up at his face. He was leaning against the wall, long hair swept behind his shoulders and carefully hidden in its long dark shadow. The only thing that she could see was his eyes, two moons watching her unwaveringly with something she couldn't identify-something she hadn't seen since before they became soldiers. He was silent as he stared at her motionlessly in the permeating ink. There was something unquestionable in his eyes that she couldn't read and she cursed the thousand spaces between them- gone years, professionalism, danger, shields put up to dull the pain of losing someone, fear..,

'_Conquer it.'_

She took a sharp intake of breath, silently begging it to soothe her pulse threatening to jump out of her wrist. "Do you remember trees?" she asked suddenly, before she could take it back.

The question lingered in the shadows between them, playing the silence like a harp. He looked at her for what seemed like minutes, something rediscovered slowly gathering in his eyes. His lips parted open. "Yes," he replied quietly, spinning the harp away with the word. She caught his eyes with hers, and smiled, relief washing over her that they weren't just some imagined memory. They were real. And for the first time in years, he looked familiar.

His eyes stayed on her. A slight blush spread over cheeks as she got the feeling he could see inside her. It was like mist was pouring into her cells. At last he glanced away, into the night sky. It was pitch-black, purple-grey smoke clouds covering the nightscape completely. "Do you remember the moon?" he asked almost inaudibly without looking at her.

Her breath caught in her throat sharply. She choked, coughing harshly. He glanced back at her, that faint-but-definite _something_ back in his eyes again. "Are you okay?"

She closed her eyes, nodding hastily as she regained her breath. She couldn't look at him. "Yeah, I just choked on some toxic smoke." He cast her a wary glance, clearly saying, _'don't lie_' before looking back at the sky.

In truth, she had remembered their last night at their old city, staring at the stars and moon as she tried to find answers in them. There was only one moon she still remembered clearly-his eyes as he silently took her hand that night. And she had laughed, because the answer had been there all along.

Then they had run away before the bomb hit them and destroyed every part of their home. Now there were only memories that had to be ripped apart and thrown away and silence to be held without ever finding the key. Because if the silence was broken, then the hourglass would smash all their secrets flooding away and they would be stabbed to death by its shards. No one could ever find out where they had come from, or they would be killed. Their old home had been this fortress's enemy. They would be considered traitors and slaughtered without question if anyone ever found out where they had come from, or who they had known back then.

So they pretended they had no connection and years drifted away without a word exchanged. But tonight…she glanced at his white eyes.

"I remember the moon." There was no mistaking the hollowness of her tone, expertly emotionless so that he wouldn't look up and catch the sad smile that had crept up her face. He felt something empty in his chest turn cold; Tenten wasn't emotionless. That was his dominion, something she couldn't carry.

He stayed silent, watching the floor as acid rain started shedding from the sky, forming black puddles on the metal concrete. They swirled with images, and for some reason he could not look away from them. Her reflection shined upon the steel briefly, shoulders hunched up, eyes tensely staring at the ground with temptation barely controlled in depths of loneliness. Her hands clenched something tightly in her pocket, like if she let it go she would fall into a million pieces.

In an instant the image was shattered by another drop of rain, but the illusion was painful. He found his feet walking over to her without thinking and stopped, standing at her at side. His shoulders twitched; god, he wanted to hold her. After another tense moment he looked up and caught her eye; a question passed between them in the air that they both knew without saying. Her eyes were full of hope and just a trace of light he never saw anymore.

"Do you want to risk it-just tonight?" she asked softly. Her voice barely hit the volumes of sound as she held his gaze.

He smirked, white eyes flashing hotly. "Definitely."

She laughed playfully then, sending a wave of warmth tingling down his neck as finally gave into the raging battle inside her and laid a shy, little kiss below his ear. It had been a while and she wasn't used to this, being so close and feeling his heat. He felt her lips curve into a small smile on his neck before she laid her head on his shoulder, looping an arm through his and hugging his back. Finally, to feel this again, to be able to hold him again…she breathed in a sigh of content, closing her eyes and snuggling into his shoulder.

He put his arm around her waist, tightening it carefully to hold her close to him as he felt a sense of peace that he could never truly find settle into his chest. He tilted his head ever-so-slightly to look at her, brushing his lips over the top of her forehead with just a hint of firmness that said,_ 'You are mine.'_ She looked up at him, the smile becoming visible in a warm spark of amber and a curve of pink lips. He smirked back, the usually hard line of his mouth somehow tender and the pearl eyes gentle and white-hot as they seeped into hers. She held his gaze, and would not let go for anything.

They stood together in the acid rain as black pelted itself off the night sky and slowly released the soft morning glow. Pale light opened a veil across the hard steel streets, casting upon the sharp dull grey and softening its color. She snuggled into the warmth of his strong arms wrapped around her waist and put her arms around his neck. Her eyes sparkled amber as a slight smile curved his lips and mischievously he leaned in without warning and caught her in a hot kiss.

Morning was okay.

* * *

_(Hold me._

_Whatever lies beyond this morning is a little later on._

_Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all._

_Nothing's like before.)_


	9. Sanctuary Illusion?

**Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine.**

**Summary: Tenten dreams a little dream as a storm lulls her to sleep in the middle of a battlefield…or is it a dream?**

**A/N: Dedicated to FalconFire. Inspired while listening to Kairo (Sea Route) by Utada Hikaru and FalconFire's 'The Man I Love'. For someone who'll never write angst, you're pretty good at inspiring it. :) I recommend listening to the song while reading (available on YouTube). **

**Oh yeah, and I'm removing the schedule of updating every other day...I won't be able to keep up with it when school starts again, and it just makes me write meaningless stories in order to satisfy it, which is pretty pointless to both me and you. So from now on I'll just update whenever real inspiration strikes me (which COULD possibly still be every other day, it just takes the pressure off of me xD). ENJOY!

* * *

**

**Sanctuary Illusion (?)**

She gripped her sword as she trudged through the battlefield, eyes darker than a cratered dream. The metal clanked against the ash and coal that littered the grass, playing a sweet, dark song that lulled the wounded asleep. Blood slowly flowed into the earth in streams from the weapon's broken veins. The starless sky burned black like the torn wings of fallen angels painting her back. Flames roared around her in looming pillars like the faces of ancient beasts, crashing down trees of her home as her eyelids fluttered wearily, barely conscious as she stabbed the sword into the path. Alone in the war's nightmare, she lowered her head, black buns coming undone in the melting fire's smoke as she struggled to keep the screen from fading away in her eyes. Only she was awake to see the scene.

_(I want to talk to my father one more time_

_The wish of a man in his final days)_

She chuckled, the last note lightly bitter as it choked out of her throat. She just wanted to sleep…her eyes slowly drifted as smoke wavered in streams of mist in the blur of red. The grey spinning snakes vaguely reminded her of another dance, among the same trees of a dancer who would always flow his sorrow through limbs alone. The flashes of blue and red clashed confusedly in her vision as the heat slowly climbed up her flesh, melting into her pores into somewhere deep where she could not escape beneath her skin.

_(Hide and seek, _

_I will never finish)_

Lightning slowly spurred from dirty grey shadows in the sky, mixing with the transistor of a storm…she closed her eyes as the rain fell lightly in cold scatters of ice, drops kissing her skin. The darkened lines of a face traced itself into the tempest sky. She exhaled into the haze, a deep breath releasing all the gathered tension of pain in her chest. Was this a memory or a dream?

Either way, it was all okay.

The folds of what were either past days or reality unbound themselves across the screen, painting a landscape as she listened to the harmony of rain. She remembered how this went…her fingers clutched at the grass, tired muscles as she smiled sleepily up at the clouds, rain tracing her dirt-stained face. This was the part that he came in and touched her wounds with cold fingers that smelled of rain…had it been raining back then or was it merely his scent falling over her?

Words broke the silence like single notes in fog. "Tenten." She could feel the warmth of her skin slowly drifting away like vapor into the winds, and somehow it was okay. She smiled into the fuzzy outline of a familiar white face, the sharp angles tense in lines of worry. Two hands took her arms firmly, a strong, refreshing touch that briefly awakened her like a spark of soft ice. She lifted off the ground slowly, reaching towards his face with shaking fingers. If this was merely an illusion of the rain, that was okay as long as he didn't leave her. A soothing feeling settled into her as his voice came in louder. "Tenten, get up!" The deep voice held a note of panic, and in the distance a cord struck in her that it wasn't supposed to be frantic, he was usually calm and trained and formal.

She blinked once, making an effort to stretch open her half-fallen eyelids. "It's okay Neji…just stay with me." She smiled, something weak entering a desperate hollowness in her chest as she vaguely remembered the lining of a turned back getting ever farther away from her. "That's all I ask." She whispered, touching her fingertips to his face briefly. The single surge of warmth that entered her skin was enough. She sank back to the ground contentedly, his arms wrapping around her back before she met the mud. The lips tightened in pain on his face, eyes tense as their lavender color slowly faded from her vision.

"I'm sorry, Tenten." The voice echoed into her ears quietly, faint and almost inaudible but there was no mistaking the regret laced into his words. His fingers tightened around hers briefly as colors slowly sank away from her vision like paints on an unfinished canvas.

She smiled one last time as the rain dulled the gasping of fire. "Its okay, Neji." She whispered again, closing her eyes and feeling a sense of peace that she had comforted and filled as much of the empty space in his eyes as she could. His arms held her close, warmth spreading across her skin before it all fell to black. Her last thought drifted off towards the moon…_it wasn't just a dream_.

He lifted her off the grass, a smile still lifting the ends of her lips as eyelashes dusted her cheeks. He studied her face, memorizing every detail, the wind-splashed flush of skin, the feel of her in his arms. He let the tears fall, refusing to close his eyes for anything as he carried her off the burnt grass where they used to train.

He would find her a new home.


	10. Autumn Messenger

**Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me…otherwise all my drabbles would happen in the actual manga. Think you all know this, so this is the last time I'm putting it up. **

**A/N: Wow, second one in a day. xD See, I told you I could keep up if the pressure was off of me! Dedicated to NessieGG for inspiring this with her '_Tempering Soul and Steel_'. You're a genius. –cries tears of jealousy and admiration- Also inspired by the song '_Kirei na Kanjou_' (Pure Emotions) by Yuki Kajiura for the great anime Noir. Lately my drabbles have been taking a lighter turn from all the angst I usually write. Just a warning to those who come here expecting a good cry. xD; (look at '_The Fleeting Moon_' or '_Its Okay to Cry_' if that's you) Enjoy!

* * *

**

**Autumn Messenger**

The sun is dyed with fading colors as it leaves the sky, leaving behind its last gasp of red. She watches with a solemn tranquility, expression set with traces of fierce determination painted in thin dabs of red light on her face. He squeezes her fingers lightly with just a hint of firmness in the movement, silent as her touch brushes past him and she steps onto the damp leaves of the hill, twigs and damp grass crunching against her feet.

She does not look behind her as she walks away, back straight with strength, kunai still shining under the dying light clenched in her warrior hand and face radiating with drops of sun.

But he knows she can feel her watching him, penetrating gaze longingly following her retreating figure as it shrinks into the twigs of trees. She raises her hand into the chilly autumn wind, gusts of white twirling around loose strands of black. It is a silent greeting, one she knows he'll catch. He smirks at the confirmation that she does know his eyes are always watching her back.

Suddenly two fingers extend with a sting of blackened steel and in a flash the weapon flies from her fingertips with perfect aim. His eyes narrow once, jumping back from the path of the weapon as it slices the air, lodging straight into the bark of a tree with a striking _thud_. He stares at it, confusion exuding from his white eyes in waves before something clicks in them. Composure smoothes over his face again, the smirk resetting itself as he carefully removes the weapon with trained fingers. He runs his eyes over the worn metal with something that might be a taste of a smile before tucking it into his pocket and turning towards his own side of the hill, parting his lips open ever-so-slightly to feel the invigorating stir of autumn brush past his lungs. He no longer felt bothered by the dying crimson of the leaves or sun.

They'll always say goodbye but that's okay.


	11. Hourglass is Inexistent

_A/N: First one in a while! Sorry, I've been working on a piece for the Shifting Seasons contest in Ten-Squared LJ community. I started this drabble several days ago but only found my muse again today. Enjoy!_**  
**

**Hourglass is Inexistent**

There are raindrops and there are tears but then there's that steady stream of notes rushing through your ears and into your rivers of blood. Its flowing rhythms and that steady _thump_ resounding through your chest and in the tiny points of electricity through your systems in intervals that just seem so right. And the melody is simple; inhale-exhale-kill.

But lately there's been a harmony crashing into it that she can't play out and somehow the clashing cymbals seem to fit so well with the tune she thinks she must be going crazy.

_(to love is to know madness)_

Inhale-exhale-_breathe_.

It doesn't fit at all well with how she lives, she knows. Kunoichi can't stop for love; they can't stop moving at all, its just rush-rush-rush, fight and kill and hope you won't die too soon. But between the panting and tearing away the rushed moments until she can no longer bleed, she wants to find something. If there's anything in the seconds that his eyes rest on hers and their fingers entwine in that secret wish for the permanence of spring-if there's anything she can do to just be able to feel him and hold that cold touch until it burns-

Well then she would just lay down in the flow of the river and let the tides take her away.

Maybe it doesn't matter how long she lives if it's all just metallic flashes and sparks that flicker out before the darkness calls. She wants to find something-not worth fighting for, just-

Worth holding.

She's always watched the path of her weapons and sent them on their way, knowing the exact destination of desire and not being able to touch it with her own hands. Its like how he watches his birds. He keeps the sky like a record log of flights or maybe dreams, and its only when she watches him, standing still at the bottom of the hourglass that she realizes they are both wishers tossed into the well. They might always be waiting for that ladder and forget they can climb the stone walls. Its always fighting, fighting, fighting for strength and dominance but never _moving_.

And that makes all the difference.

The things she loves the best are the free moments of relaxation, under the shadows of the leaves they usually run past and just watching the sun spread its rays through the night. She can cherish that and try to savor it, but she knows she has no time. Or does she?...

That day she breaks the glass.

They're done after another day's session of training, her picking up hoards of weapons and wiping blood from a few of them and him retying his hair. She's the only one who's ever seen it unbound and wild, and that secret little picture stops her from giving into the temptation of stealing his elastic. It'd be great to see him just a little unbalanced for once, but she thinks she has a better way of doing that today.

She picks up her last kunai, wiping dirt from its rough black surface and polishing the dull edge. Playfully, she glances at him out of the corner of her eye as he counts the flurry of birds and presses her lips to the metal. It's a cool touch stinging with bitter taste and she reflects with a sly smile she might be feeling it again soon.

He glances at her for a brief second, tracing the curve of her lips with his clear eyes. She tosses it to him and he raises his hand in slight surprise, fingers closing around it automatically but stumbling around the jagged edges and a flash vibrates across pearls. He squints after a moment, like he's not quite sure what just happened or what it is and he raises his white eyes to her, but her slim figure is already retreating into the trees again. Her laughter slips in through the leaves with a spark of amber as she glances back to catch the rare hope faintly lining his eyes.

"**It's yours."**


	12. Unseen Sparks

_A/N: Another vignette, quickly uploaded to make up for the huge gap of no updates. Don't own Sakura Drops by Utada Hikaru (I swear that girl's going to keep these going for the next year). I'm waiting for **75 reviews** before the next update, so please review! Get a friend to review each chapter if you're impatient. X3 Enjoy!  
_

**Unseen Sparks (Magnetic Thread)**

Tenten zipped through the trees, slicing air as she slashed ten kunai towards Neji's arms and legs. His lips moved rapidly as he blocked the weapons easily as a juggler restacking toy blocks, never stopping his haunting drone. He was trying desperately to make her understand-_something_- because the intent burning in his eyes darkened the forest with every syllable. And bitterness was etched into the sharpness of his face like a web.

He leapt forward, spinning a katana in rapid circles. The sound was vibrating like a gong's cry through the air, and yet she couldn't hear a single word.

She narrowed her eyes, sweat lining the curves of her face as she growled with the force of her concentration. Flares were blurring her senses, electric pulses that flamed at the sight of his face. What was he saying? Probably something about fate again.

She flipped backwards, beating her feet against bark as she leapt away from his blows. His lips were moving faster now, eyes only burning brighter as the night drowned away the sun's last words. They were flickering faster and faster like lightbulbs ready to explode if unnoticed and his fingers were shooting out, some managing to stab cords of pain through her back despite her desperate twisting.

It was a cruel game of hide-and-seek, with her as the mouse, wincing as she snaked around the same branch over and over again, spinning back and forth to avoid his furious fingers only to get hit yet again.

_(Why do I keep taking the same punches over and over again?_

_Even so, I'll keep on fighting._

_That's the mystery of life.)_

Damn him and his accuracy. He held the whip in close combat, the snake that could swallow her in whole with a glance. Single white orbs glared against the steaming volcano sky, erupting with questions and confessions. The sight was inescapable and at last Tenten fell back, gasping with sudden panic before clashing hard into bark. "Ugh!" she moaned, instantly hating herself for the noise.

She had a second to blink before he fell on her, thrusting his fingers towards her face. She flinched, anticipating rapid payback. He must've noticed she wasn't listening!

Her eyes widened as he gently touched her lips.

Smirking, he said softly, "You didn't hear what I said."

A dark blush instantly spread across her cheeks.

She opened her lips but no words came out. His eyes sparked white-hot as he watched her, a small teasing smile on his face. Her face was burning. Steam must've been rising from her breath. She cursed mentally, ironically wishing now to make a sound- _anything_ to fill the silence waiting like morning fog in his eyes. Goddammit, what did he say? She had seen him mouth the word 'fate', but…

She had never seen those white sparks flash through her own reflection before. It was a deep hunger, flickering purely through mist that invited her in. At last, she smiled, voicelessly seeping confessions as she kissed his tense fingers, suddenly feeling his veins burn against her lips.

A magnetic thread suddenly sparked between their skin, pulling them closer in an electric flare that begged to circuit. She gave in thirstily, drinking in his touch as his fingers instinctively moved closer. She glimpsed a rare close view of his face flickering red with obvious restraint. At last the tensing veins broke loose and he pulled his fingers aside and leaned in. A cool breath released heavily from his lips, quickly brushing hers. His deep tones panted through the surface of air, blowing away all doubts with that single sound of wanting before their lips met in a single, sweet touch.

Lightning shot through, flowing freely between the two. Embers seeped and blossomed the blazing glow of a flower deep within the wires as each fought breathlessly for control of the magnet.

At last they broke away, electric sparks still flashing between pearl and amber in the air. She laughed, panting as an amused sweetness lined the emptiness between her fighting lungs and the glass eyes that she gazed at through half-lowered lids.

"You were saying about fate?"

He smirked, touching her lips again and feeling the sparks still flicker through.

"Its not the only thing that connects us." he whispered.

_(It shouldn't be too far from here-_

_**A view you've never seen before.)**_


	13. Silent Eclipse

_Dedicated to Shattered Serenity for her great support._

_A/N: I swear, I woke up with this idea. xD; Originally I already had the second half planned but the first part was a surprise that came to mind that I hadn't thought about including. The lines in parenthesis are from Deep Inside of You by Third Eye Blind. Enjoy!_

**Silent Eclipse **

She shouldn't have been getting married.

But they are no longer his trees to fall, he reminds himself as her long gown sends the whole forest to the ground.

He wants to watch the last snapshot of her face, burning pure and undaunted, before the camera hits the ground with a kiss. Instead he turns his head away. He's already searched a thousand times for a fake smile, a flicker of tension, a slight overcast in her eyes of disappointment-_anything_ that said she didn't **really** want to be up there, marrying Inuzuka.

But there is nothing, he knows. There are no negative signals, no cards he can play to get that ring off of her finger in his mind and so he sits there stiffly, lips bridled silent as he watches her brown eyes gleam with a drop of amber under the golden afternoon sun. The clouds have long drifted away somewhere else, drawing back curtains of the sky to expose the full daylight. And all the birds have taken flight, dancing in the wind and leaving their feathers behind to drift in the dust.

He thinks it's ironic that this particular picture has chosen to fit the frame and the only thing wrong with it is whose lips are covering hers.

And he's not a bad guy. He's not on Orochimaru's side, or weak, or poor… He's just a young, wild boy with more guts and emotion than he's ever risked showing her.

_(I took for granted you were with me)_

His eyes steer around the scene one last time, taking in all the smiles and glistening eyes. Pearls flash. There's another thing wrong this picture.

She's not looking at him.


	14. Withered Chrysalis

_AN: The first draft of the winter section from my fic in-progress, 'Only Eden' (my excuse for the lack of updates here xD; ). The final version will be different, but consider this a teaser:) The parenthesis are from This is the Countdown by Mae. Enjoy!_

**Withered Chrysalis**

"Tenten?"

She leaned against the birch, watching melting snow fall off the bare winter branches. Cheerfully she twirled a kunai around her finger, humming a pleasant tune as she closed her eyes, rising her barely-tinted cheeks to release a cold breath into the arms of spring.

"Yeah, Neji?"

She lazily cracked open an eye, a peaceful smile warming her lips as she watched him stare at the cracking ice beneath his feet. Time ticked by like a compass in slow-motion as mist rose into the fluorescent sun. His arms hung stiffly at his sides, and if he wasn't a Hyuuga she would've sworn he was fidgeting and-god, did he just bite his lip!

At last he looked up at her, firm white eyes set with a fresh determination. His fingers twitched-no, shook as he tentatively took a step closer; then another, and then another and another, forcibly becoming steady strides. She looked at him curiously, both eyes open with interest and slightly shaking with something like nervousness. What did he want that made him so anxious?

The faint flush on her cheeks darkened with something else entirely than the cold as his arms encircled her waist.

"Uh-" she breathed tensely, her white breath fading in the space between them. She lifted her eyes to meet his, face burning as his strong gaze pulled her in. She opened her lips once more but no words came out. His eyes held her, something unfulfilled breathing in their hollow tones as he tightened his arms around her closer to him.

She blinked, dazed as she felt his burning veins tense, muscles tightening with self-control. His lips tightened briefly, then loosened with a cool heavy breath. She watched the mist dance away into the afternoon sun-anything to distract herself from his eyes.

_(You put your nets out  
and still you chose to do without.)_

"Wh-what do you want?" she asked, eyes forced downward. She urged the blood to drain from her cheeks. This couldn't be happening-he couldn't possibly **want** her, after all the years of indifference and mocking her dreams. She had made the illusions vaporize a year ago, when his arranged marriage to the Cloud princess had been announced. He had barely looked at her then, the hardened frames of his eyes shaking with something nearly undetectable but uncontrolled. She had looked away then, too. And she wouldn't start looking now. What was he thinking?

"…" He stared at her, lips motionless. Words were fluttering on the tips of his mind but they only managed to seep through his glass eyes. And yet the message still blazed clear.

"Now? You've had years to say something, and only now when you're getting married do you finally make a move?" She pushed out of his arms, teeth tearing at her lip at the effort it took to keep her eyes away from his. "No, Neji." She managed, lips shaking. "You had your chance. You lost it."

_(The only way to catch a butterfly  
is never waiting for the wings-)_

She turned away, eyes closed. "Can't you at least say something?" she whispered desperately, a mere faint wish draining away into the world. He watched her with empty eyes, feeling blank and lost as she treaded off through the trees, leaving deep footprints in the snow that would be gouged in his mind forever.

The wish was not unheard.

But he didn't know what to do.


	15. Could be Nothing Closing

**_A/N: WAH! I know, I know, I've been gone forever and ever and ever. . I ish sorry. T.T However, due to the lovely Nejiten LJ Community's festival, I have managed to muster up some inspiration and present to you the first of 10 drabbles done for the '10 for 10' Challenge. _**

**_Theme: #6 'We Might As Well Be Strangers' _**

**_POV: Neji_

* * *

**

**Could Be Nothing Closing-**

I can find no inspiration in the way your eyes have emptied; they were once mine. Endless white depths that see nothing and feel nothing. I look at your numb hands and suppress a shake, jaw tightening as I look at my own and realize I can no longer remember what it is to merely know existence as a box that is cardboard and nothing else.

I can honestly say it was you that filled out the frames of mine.

But now that you have become who I once was, I do not know if I can return the favor.

I don't know if I can stay, everyday watching you shake as you cling to the side of the bed, staring at the dirt in the plaster cracks between the tiles as though the jagged lines were forcing your eyelids open. They vibrate, every little nerve trembling the hairs on your neck and every bone that makes up the steps of your the ladder spinal cord that no longer straightens with forming answers about to transform into something more.

Did I take it from you?

Frail brittle bone stark against black; one by one, the darkness will dissipate, along with every thread of color in the spectrum of sunlight that used to trace your forehead.

I leave through the door, finding no words to become the air we used to share and leave you dying in white sheets.

We might as well be strangers.


	16. Ocean Maze

_A/N: I am alive. :O Its been forever I know, and I'm sorry! TT I've started a lot of drabbles but haven't been able to finish any of them lately...so to cure my intensive writer's block, I've decided to open requests to you guys! Feel free to request a theme or pairing! Just make sure that if you request a pairing you have a theme, because if its something like, KankurouTen I might have hard time coming up with something on my own. .;_

_This is my entry for the TenSquared Anniversary Contest, which I wrote a while ago but haven't been allowed to post this until now because of the rules. xP; Slighty cheesy, but please enjoy!

* * *

_

**Ocean Maze**

He is devoid. He is the empty spaces between color and death, frozen like icicles jarring at the cores of rocks. He watches the birds and he loves them but it's that first time when he sees the mist vaporize into the sky like a wish crashing off the waves that he finds his reflection.

It disappears into the tidal callings of the moon, running deep into the mazes of the ocean currents and when he watches the water, still or raging he smiles because he knows there are lives trying to find themselves beneath the blue flow. In itself, the water is like him-blank and forced to take the shape and illusion of whatever came into its flow. It couldn't fight; it could only drown its attackers into its cold depths as it longed to be anything but pure. Purity meant fragility; an exposed innocence that could get shattered at any moment.

And so he chased after the waters circling in his mind, the free flow of fate and peered down into its clear depths.

And yet he couldn't see anything.

His reflection was all black and grayed waves spun him away into endless depths where he could only sink, unbreathing and trapped within the numbing walls that seeped past his stone skin and entered him.

It was the first time he felt fear.

It was a chilling, gnawing burning of toxic coals that never seemed to lose steam and ate away at his flesh and veins with a dark cold ink. It was seeping into him and he couldn't-he couldn't-

_feel_.

It was just…cold. Everything. A tortured frigid gap that cried out for vacancy to be filled within his chest and it was then that he panicked. Because all the doorways that could cure the excruciating nothing lead outside the whirlpool, and he could not bring himself to unlock it.

_(Never taking off the weights that keep us stuck here- in the comfort and the fear.)_

Or find the key.

The days fled into years as he watched the faded outline of the clock spin its web in the black. Soon he had just-let go, letting the whirlpool carry him away as his eyes faded blank, white and halting as the penetrating eyes of a haunted doll. He couldn't break free-he hadn't found the key- and so he watched as others beat at the waters in the distance and scorned their futile struggle. Why couldn't they be free, and just let the water carry them away?

Its when he felt her touch- a single warm grasp, like the secrets of a candle floundering in the dark, that he knew the key was not somewhere in the cage. It was hidden somewhere deep inside of her, within the strange flesh that pulsed with newfound blood that-

Just wouldn't give up.

But she had already kicked off into the air on wings and only feathers flew behind for him to catch. They are nothing familiar, not the cold metal bars that he knows or the washing of the tide has never drowned his voice out completely. They are white but untamed and something electric is sparking inside his blue veins. They starve for air and as he catches an amber star shine in the distance he knows he's got to find the flight.

But then he closes his eyes, because-because-

He doesn't know if he can handle a first breath without shattering like his walls.

As chains of fate whip against him, though, he begins to have second doubts about letting the sea take him. The waters are dragging against his back with every wave like a slice of ice and he winces every time he falls into it because it's nothing like her touch.

He's-starting to miss…something…is it air? Was there a time when he watched the birds and not the waves?

His eyes sputter open into the world.

The wind greets him like a castle to an overlord who's just woken up from a sleep of a thousand days and now the clock's rewound itself open.

She watches him tensely, lips furrowed deeply together as he chokes on a last spurge of water. Her amber eyes flash with shadows as she puts a hand on his chest. "You okay, Neji?" The words are casual but just a hint of worry is laced into her tone and he can tell by her voice that her throat is dry. It echoes through her fingers and into that hollow-something-that suddenly has a name.

The last of the ocean has finally left him. His tired eyes open and the slightest smile curves as his heart beats, pumping energy into his slowly rising veins. "Never been better." He says quietly in a deep, worn voice but the smile is still lingering because its true.

The rose's petals have fallen off but he's not a desperate beast anymore.

He's a bird. A songmaker of the wind that just-

Won't give up.

She smiles back, curved cheeks glowing. "Great." Her amber eyes twinkle with a true glint of gladness under the sun before she gets up from the sand, brushing it off her pants. As he eyes the ocean stains on her vest and the grains of sand that have managed to get caught in her hair he realizes she's been beside him the whole time.

She reaches out a hand playfully, a teasing glint replacing the worry in her eyes. "Need some help?"

He scowls and doesn't reply, instantly pushing off the shore and dusting sand off his clothes. "Let's go." he chooses to respond instead, turning. The sun blinds him momentarily as the sea gusts blow his hair backwards and he squints.

She laughs. "Uh, Neji, it's that way." She jabs a thumb in the other direction and she can't resist a smirk as his eyes widen slightly before darkening instantly and he stalks off with a huff. Her lips mirror his usual amused ones perfectly with an extra sparkle as she turns confidently in the other direction.

He puts his hand on her back as they head off the beach, leaving the tides behind them. She turns her head in a little spark of shock at the touch and looks at him inquiringly, a slight flush sprung up in her cheeks.

He smirks, a faint gesture that's somehow tender as he turns his eyes ahead. He knows. She's the one guiding him out of the maze.

He looks back to catch a last glimpse of his old home, though, as a gust of sea wind breaths a gasp of mist into the air, and his eyelids lower slightly in complete contentment. Because he can see his reflection.

It takes light, he realizes suddenly, to find the key.

And so he takes his key by the hand and flies into a wind that he can drown in all he wants.


End file.
